❝My longing comes to my lips as prayer — O God, let my life be like a candle's flame. Let the world's darkness be removed by my breath — let every place be lit by my shining.❞
Sir Muhammad Iqbal, known as Allama Iqbal, was a philosopher, poet, and politician, widely regarded as the 'Poet of the East'. His poetry inspired the Pakistan Movement. He wrote the famous 'Saare Jahan Se Achha' and is revered across the Indian subcontinent.
Nazm is a Hindi-Urdu poetic form that tells a single, continuous story or idea from start to finish — unlike the ghazal's independent couplets. Drawing on Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Allama Iqbal, Gulzar, and Sahir Ludhianvi, this collection rewards a slower, more attentive read.
❝Better than all the world is our Hindustan, We are its nightingales, this is our garden grand. Even in exile our hearts remain in our native land, Know us to be where our hearts take their stand.❞
❝Rise and awaken the poor of my world, Shake the walls and doors of the mansions of the wealthy world. The field from which the farmer earns no bread — Burn every wheat stalk in that field instead.❞
❝A bird makes its nest on every branch it knows, But in the human heart a million dwelling flows. Somewhere desire, somewhere pain, somewhere separation's claim — Who truly understands this world of heart, to them all fame.❞
❝The intellect has nothing beyond mere information, Your cure lies in vision alone, above every creation. The slave of self-interest has always earned humiliation, True purpose is nothing but fearless aspiration.❞
❝My longing rises to my lips as a prayer, O God, may my life be like a candle's flame, may the world's darkness be dispelled by my breath, may my glow bring light to every place.❞
❝Better than the whole world is our Hindustan, we are its nightingales, this is our garden, if we are in foreign lands, our heart stays in the homeland, know us to be there too, wherever our heart is.❞
❝We shall see, certainly we too shall see, that promised day, which is written on eternity's tablet, when these towering mountains of tyranny and cruelty will blow away like tufts of cotton.❞
❝From the grapes of tender feelings I have brought today this wine, beloved, with my own hands I shall pour you the cup today, let me first offer it to you, then the world shall receive its blessing, before all others, my tavern of wine welcomes you first.❞
❝This leprous daybreak, this dawn mauled by night, this is not that dawn for which we had waited, this is not that dawn with the longing for which, friends had set out, believing we'd find it somewhere.❞
❝Beyond the stars there are yet more worlds, there are yet more trials of love to face, these skies are not empty of life, here there are hundreds more caravans still to come.❞
❝Some of my belongings still lie with you, some rain-soaked days of the monsoon are kept there, and a night wrapped inside one of my letters lies there too, extinguish that night, return to me my things.❞
❝Sometimes a thought crosses my mind, that had my life passed in the soft shade of your tresses, it might have flourished, might have bloomed green, rather than this darkness that is my life's destiny.❞